#decolonizelutheran

A group of newer, often younger, folks from my tradition are advocating a new way of being "Lutheran" that does not depend upon the colonizing cultural influences of the past. The colonizing theological influences are OK, but the folks who share and press for a "de-colonized" Lutheranism are much more concerned about the social mores. They will succeed in the end. How can they not? Culture, when faced with theology, always loses.

The problem is, however, that one can never divorce oneself from culture, and therefore you never actually experience the victory your theology vindicates. All you experience is suffering. But theology always wins. We just never see it. This was Luther's great insight into the question of theology and culture (which is, of course, anachronistic to Luther's culture, but that's the point of his theology.) Theology (and in the case of Luther this is God's Word, Jesus Christ) conquers all cultural relativizing precisely because Christian theology is non-cultural. (Never make the mistake of equating "non"-cultural with "counter"-cultural, that is the failure of all Christians who think God cares about their politics. In essence God cares about no politics because Love is not a political energy. All cultures are relativized by theology.)

I'll never forget when I first came across this line by Martin Luther "Seventh, the holy Christian people are eternally recognized by the holy possession of the sacred cross." (On the Councils and the Church, 1539) I was blown away by that insight into what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ as the way of God. Think about this line with me. Christians are possessed by the "sacred cross." (Think of your favorite movie about demon possession, and replace it with Jesus Christ on the cross.) And this possession we experience is not bound by history and the vicissitudes of time, but rather is an "eternal" possession that leads to our being recognized by God as lovers of Jesus Christ and the way through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amazing.

In short, what it means, is that God recognizes you as a child of God as you suffer from possessing the cross you have been given in life; and, as that cross is sacred, that is blessed by the power of Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit (that's how things become "sacred" to a Christian), that cross, that suffering becomes your very salvation. Unfortunately, the predominant experience is suffering, but that suffering is literally a sign of your salvation. And culture has been relativized by theology once again.

But, Black Americans get shot in the back by white police officers. Women get raped by men. Elderly get abused by the youth. Trans folks get fired from jobs. The suffering, the salvation, has real consequences. People die. People cry. People live. People give. And culture gloats on its merry way to obsolescence because the people who died, who suffered, who cried, who gave everything were defined by their theology, not their culture.

It's the ones who don't die, who survive, who tell the most heart-breaking of stories. It's like they have been taken to the cliffs of Mount Nebo, and rudely left there to sift through the ashes of their pain. Mount Nebo may be a good metaphor for what I am talking about. The view may have been gorgeous, but we'll never know because the only one who saw that view didn't make it down the mount alive.

So it goes for anyone who tries to de-colonize Lutheranism or de-colonize anything for that matter...you may glimpse the promised land, but your chances of making it back down to share with the rest us is pretty much nil. But, I'm guessing, if like Moses you went through all that suffering to just to get there, you'd probably be OK with that.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.